Work starts on forces memorial...thanks to Daily Mail readers

Daily Mail readers have donated more than £75,000 to pay for a national memorial to 16,000 servicemen who gave their lives for their country.

Trustees of the memorial thanked them for their generosity and revealed that the money was already being used to get the construction programme under way.

The money was raised in only two days after the Mail highlighted the Big Lottery Fund's decision not to contribute towards the memorial, which honours the servicemen and women who have died in uniform since the Second World War.

More than £ 65,000 was given through the newspaper and another £10,000 sent to the memorial's website.

Only 48 hours later, the Millennium Commission agreed to fund the project - and the Mail fund was closed.

The commission's board will meet next week to rubber-stamp a decision to hand over more than £2million.

They had come under pressure from Gordon Brown, who was said to be furious about the earlier refusal.

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Callander, the project director, said the generosity of Mail readers had provided 'valuable cash in hand' to help with construction.

The memorial, a giant circle of 15ft-high white Portland stone, is being built at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield, Staffordshire.

The names of every man and woman will be carved in the stone in chronological order. There is also a sculpture depicting servicemen carrying a mortally wounded comrade from the battlefield.

The monument has been designed so that at exactly 11am on November 11 - Armistice Day - a slit in one wall will let a ray of sunshine light the central plaque.

Lt Col Callander urged supporters to keep giving to help construct a separate memorial in Westminster Abbey and to maintain the main memorial.